


The Winter of Our Discontent

by fauxpromises



Series: A Madness Most Discreet [4]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Confrontations, Dad Spy, Dysfunctional Relationships, Father-Son Relationship, Forgiveness, Gen, Light Angst, Mentions of Blood, Minor Violence, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-10-03 04:16:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10235684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fauxpromises/pseuds/fauxpromises
Summary: They were in the very delicate position of having to start from the beginning on this relationship, no matter how much he wanted to believe there was more than that between them. And so he wondered if he stood a chance of earning real respect from the man, or if he'd even recognize it under the many layers of deception that colored his words.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story and the related series contains a mixture of canon elements from both in-game and the official comics, in addition to some of my own. The events in this story encompass pre-MvM up through the start of that arc.

It was funny, really. He'd lived through over twenty years of snowy winters in Boston—walking to school in it, playing ball in it, and on a few occasions, witnessing his own blood _(or someone else's)_ staining it. A natural part of his life, and yet all the Scout could think of right now as he watched the stuff falling beside the window...was how happy he'd have been never to see it again.

Maybe being in the desert for a few years had been to blame. With the teams stationed in a mountainous location recently, the new climate had put just about everyone in a foul mood. The day's aggressions reflected that, with plentiful insults flying back and forth in addition to projectiles and bullets. It wasn't until the snow had turned to a storm of freezing rain that both factions grudgingly retired to the closest cover that could be found—mixes of both RED and BLU stuffed themselves into the buildings and warehouses that dotted the battlefield. Suddenly the most important order of business became who would be lucky enough to take a Pyro along with them.

The Scout had been fortunate enough to count himself among those who ended up with one such Pyro. _However_ , he mused crossly, it was the RED Pyro, not his own team's cheerful arsonist. The man, or whatever he was, happened to be one of his most hated rivals. Doodling into the fogged-up glass of the window, he briefly considered the fact that he would prefer freezing to death over joining the Pyro and his RED teammates by the fire they had improvised out of broken down crates inside of the building.

Only the sound of someone approaching from behind caused him to finally break his silence. He didn't have to guess at it.

“Go away,” the BLU stated, tone flat enough to betray little emotion. “I'm tryin' to die over here.”

The _tsk_ he got in reply caused his frown to increase. “Hypothermia is hardly a noble death.”

“Then be a pal and shoot me instead.”

This time the response was a sigh. “Suggestion noted, but I'm inclined to believe that this hot coffee might prove to be a much more amusing weapon.”

The Scout threw a sour glance over his shoulder, noting the two tin mugs the older man held. He unfolded his arms as the Spy took a seat on the crate beside his, reluctantly accepting the offering—though he sniffed the contents warily just to make a point.

Sipping his coffee in a gratingly refined fashion, his father assessed him with disapproval. The Scout had come to know that expression better than he wanted to as of late, and the glare he returned it with made it clear that whatever criticism was to follow was most unwelcome.

“Quit being an idiot and take that soaked jacket off. I wasn't just being cute with the hypothermia comment—you're shivering.” He won his small victory as the Scout finally glanced off to the side, and the younger man didn't doubt for one second that he'd press the matter now. A smirk made its way into his features as he did exactly that.

“I'll get our Pyro over here to warm you up. Don't think I won't.”

Reluctantly, he removed the wet article of clothing and tossed it to the side. Being stubborn about something so petty was difficult in his current state of misery, but damned if he wanted to be mothered by this man. _At work_. Even if the circumstances were a little bit outside of the ordinary, he hated the thought of bringing their tenuously friendly relationship into the battlefield. That struggle did not seem to affect the Spy in the same way, although fraternizing with the enemy did happen to be part of his job description in the first place.

Again he huffed in aggravation, more than ready to make a show of it. “Better, _Ma?_ ”

The amused chuckle he got in return caused his bitterness to wither. With the exception of perhaps the mother in question, no one had ever been so very skilled at disarming his capacity to be pissed off.

“Such a mood you're in today.”

More glaring. If there was one thing the Scout was happy to challenge him on, it was death glares.

“I. Hate. The snow.”

“That's all?” the Spy snorted, clearly unimpressed. “I knew men who stormed the beaches of Normandy. Suffice to say you don't have an ounce of _that_ in you if poor weather makes you sulk in the corner like this.”

“Hey, somethin' we can agree on.” He smirked. “Well, I got weak genes. You know that.”

Tables successfully turned. The other man looked nothing short of unamused as his son chuckled. If there was anything he had learned from their relationship, since it had been made known to him, it was that psychological warfare happened to work excellently against the Spy. A key factor in his ability to succeed depended on being emotionally detached from any given situation, and it gave the Scout an immense amount of satisfaction to blithely tear down that barrier with a well-placed jab.

Right about now felt like a good time for just such a thing.

“So, speakin' of which,” he began abruptly, taking a swig of coffee through a suppressed grin. “You miss Ma?”

Deadpan stare. Slow blink. Eyebrows raised a fraction. He loved how discomfort looked on the man.

“I mean, been a few months since we were back at Teufort.”

He paused, partially regretting the topic he had chosen. Psychological warfare with this subject had a way of being mutually assured destruction.

“Been a while since I called,” he continued, eyes wandering off to the side. “I hope _you_ have.”

“You never were very good at this.” Blue eyes regarded him with scrutiny. It wasn't exactly with the glib arrogance that he had become so familiar with.

He shrugged. “Look, I gotta keep an eye on you for her. It ain't the other way around.”

The moment of silence felt torturously long. There were few things that made him feel quite as sick as the fact that he wasn't smart enough to outfox his father—that he had to depend on exploiting the emotion that he knew the Spy felt toward him. He almost didn't care about his suspicions that a large part of that stemmed from the way he felt for his mother. A transitive affection.

They were in the very delicate position of having to start from the beginning on this relationship, no matter how much he wanted to believe there was more than that between them. And so he wondered if he stood a chance of earning real respect from the man, or if he'd even recognize it under the many layers of deception that colored his words.

When the Spy seemed to be declining to respond, instead keeping his eyes directed to the mug held between his knees, the BLU finally accepted that he would have to finish what he started.

“What I mean, though—it's that. You were dead to me before, and I almost was okay with that at one point. When I was grown up and could deal with it.” He shifted his position, the heat that had started to return to his limbs beginning to feel like a bit _too_ much. “But I think she must've felt like you were dead _over and over_ , through all those years.”

“Enough.”

A harsh gaze had fallen on him again, and just like that his boldness retreated.

“I—uh.” He didn't quite want to believe there was murder in the other man's eyes, but he knew it too well to deny it outright. “I'm sorry, but I ain't gonna lie to you. I think lyin' about it would be a shittier thing to do than just sayin' it.”

“I realize that I am not the man you expected me to be, much less hoped for,” the Spy responded calmly, though with the strain of holding back sharper words. “But I won't have you using _her_ in such a way—"

He paused only briefly, taking control over the shred of emotion expertly, but there was no mistaking the underlying threat.

"—to twist the knife in me."

The younger man already had his mouth open to reply _,_ or at least  _try_ to salvage this, but his father cut him off with a look that shut him up in an instant. There was an understanding that went unspoken in that steely expression, a quick glimpse of something closer to injured trust than anger.

“I've not asked for your forgiveness," the Spy finally finished. It was an accusation, not a statement. "And _you?_ Have no right to pry for explanations that I don't owe you in the first place.”

The Scout winced as the other man left without another word, vanishing around the corner into the bowels of the old warehouse. He'd pushed his luck. Should've stuck to uncommitted teasing rather than letting his mouth run away with him—should've known better than to hit him in a sore spot like that.

And just like that, months of tentatively fostering a sense of trust in a father he never knew he'd _missed—_ he felt the warmth escaping him, the warmth that had ironically been coaxed into him through the very same man's tactful concern disguised as indifferent practicality.

Grabbing his soggy coat as he stood, he headed over to the RED's fire to ease the dull aching of cold in his lean frame. Suddenly an evening spent under the gaze of the enemy Pyro felt like an appropriate punishment.

He couldn't get the word _traitor_ out of his mind for the rest of the night.


	2. Chapter 2

_I fucked up._

No longer was there the question—the possibility—of it blowing over. Resolving itself. A few drinks and a smirk would not smooth out the uncomfortable space between them that had suddenly become frighteningly large once again.

The tone of the man's voice after their final conversation those few weeks ago had been unmistakably one of betrayal, but it was not until they had arrived back at Teufort—until it had been the twenty-first of the month again, when they always met for a drink at the local pub...

Ten o'clock as usual. The Spy was _never_ late. _Never_ forgot about it.

Almost like a child again, the Scout had started to feel like they had something real and tangible going now, even if it was really small and fragile and didn't quite look like a father and son. Something he felt he could count on, no matter how flimsy it might have been.

But the Spy was nowhere to be found this time.

 _I fucked up._ It was in his mind like a mantra as he backed his car out angrily, tires screeching. _Major league fuck-up._

The last place he wanted to find himself right now was alone in his apartment, but it would be several days still before his team regrouped at their next location. He had avoided any situation where he would be alone with his thoughts—no sound of the Engineer at work in the basement, or their Medic sawing away through bone into the early morning hours.

The Scout opened the fridge to grab a beer, determined to end up with some blessed alcohol in his system with or without the usual company. He closed the door, eyes lingering for a moment on the yellow envelope still pinned to the front.

No mystery lurked there. His mother had given it to him over three months ago, shortly after he had found out about _that._ He had stubbornly refused to look at the item within it again knowing full well that it would only introduce yet another layer of unwanted emotion into the already delicate situation.

Popping his beer open, he snatched up the envelope.

_Now's as good a time as any._

That was what he'd told himself in the moment, at least. A solid five minutes passed as he downed his drink, staring at the piece of paper in his hand as an annoyingly familiar feeling of wanting to hide returned once more. Just a little bit of relaxing time, maybe finish his beer first, and he'd be calm enough to be logical about this whole thing.

Maybe.

And so _now_ quickly turned into an hour, and then two. He had tossed the envelope onto the cushion and flipped the TV on, pushing the thought of dealing with it back until the next commercial—and the next. A few times he _almost_ forgot, even, but a firmly planted seed of uneasiness brought his thoughts back to it with each silence of the television.

Finally the clock read a quarter past one as he set the second empty bottle on the coffee table, grabbing the remote for the tenth time in the matter of a few minutes. It was that time of night when the channels started to go dark, and the runner supposed he should _try_ to get some sleep eventually.

His gaze wandered back to the envelope that shared the couch with him.

At least he was pleasantly buzzed now, he reasoned to himself. Maybe dealing with the situation might be a tiny bit easier with the edge taken off.

He tore through the sealed lip of the object gingerly, as if he were handling classified documents once more. His frown thinned into a troubled line as the photograph within slid out through the opening—he'd known exactly what would be inside.

The sight invited a renewed feeling of tightness in his chest, though he had looked at it many times throughout his life. Nothing had changed about the image, rather, it was his own perspective on it that had been so recently shaken.

Just a bit more yellowed at the edges than before, he simply gazed at it for a few moments. It was a picture taken over twenty years ago, on a street in his hometown, somewhere he had passed by a few times himself. It was a picture he had taken comfort in on more than one occasion, mixed with a feeling of loss that he had never quite been able to fully move beyond.

It was a picture of his parents.

His mother stole the spotlight, clearly, though in his childhood it had been his curiosity toward the other figure in the photograph that drew his attention. Big smile and arms around her ridgedly postured companion, her own stance saying nothing short of _yeah, this's my man!_ The Scout found himself cracking a smile too, wondering briefly what color her dress was, and the decorative flower pin in her hair, but the black and white veneer kept it a mystery.

The tall man standing beside her left him with a decidedly more conflicted emotion stuck in his throat. It occurred to him that he hadn't had the opportunity to lay eyes on the photo again since the truth of his identity had been revealed—since he'd been recalled to life. The resulting effect was not unlike seeing a ghost all over again.

 _Oh Christ,_ he chided himself, reluctant even still to allow himself a visceral reaction. It made him want to laugh bitterly, the fact that the stolen collection of pictures his team had teased him with—was not truly the first time he had seen his parents together.

The father in the image before him was familiar to him, a tiny shred of evidence that had allowed him to mourn the man over the course of many years. The stern expression, one hand at his mother's hip in such a way that defiantly gave away a hint of affection. His eyes didn't meet the camera exactly, as though he were cautious of what sentiments they might reveal.

“ _I realize that I am not the man you expected me to be, much less hoped for—”_

The Scout's free hand clenched into a fist.

He'd fucked this up so _badly_ now. Should've just admitted to himself, and the Spy no less, that his anger had not quite resolved itself as much as he'd hoped. That it was _irrational_ and he knew he couldn't ask the man for anything more than he was already giving. His father's first question to him after they had finally spoken to each other again hit him in a regrettably tender spot— _do you hate me?_

 _(God, he actually_ cared _whether his son hated him. That alone had made it infuriatingly impossible to do so.)_

And really, he didn't. It hadn't been a lie. But his subconscious—his heart, whatever one wanted to call it—wasn't quite so easily changed. He'd abandoned them all, as far as he was concerned, even if there had never been a promise to be there in the first place. Lingering at the edge of their lives was enough for his mother, perhaps, but it was so much more complicated for him as the man's son.

Because he'd ended up robbed of a father, not by death, but by intent. That was worse, sort of, because he learned how to deal with the grief of a _dead_ father.

Just not the grief of one who'd turned his back on him.

 _That_ was going to take a while, no matter how much he wanted to be that little boy again. The child in him would've forgiven the man any sin in a heartbeat, but that was before he'd grown up and realized no father could ever live up to the task of filling that horrible emptiness.

(And he couldn't hate him for that, even if a part of him _really_ wanted to sometimes.)

One way or another, the Scout thought, he would have to convey this messy tangle of thoughts to him if he was going to make things close to right again. And he would have to find a way to apologize _somehow_ , for that low blow, that shot at the Spy's relationship with his mother. That point of shame, one that even he knew he had no right to shove the older man's nose in.

He glanced over at the phone, heart rate picking up once again.

His Ma had said before that the conflict between them lay squarely in the fact that they saw too much of themselves in each other. An arrogant unwillingness to surrender happened to be one of those traits. And he hated nothing more than the thought that he would have to be the one to give in this time, to make himself vulnerable in the name of _whatever the hell_ they had between them.

He picked up the phone.


	3. Chapter 3

The slight tremors in his hand as it gripped the receiver had become noticeable by the time he heard the click of the line being picked up on the other side. He knew that backing out of this would be difficult once he set the wheels in motion, and his will to do so was already tentative at best.

For a moment there was only silence, and an instant of terror passed as the Scout considered who exactly he would be speaking to.

 _Please, not yet,_ he implored whatever might be listening to him. _That_ _ain't the way I wanna do this, so just cut me a break here for once._

Perhaps some mercy did exist in the universe after all, because relief soon washed over him as the irritated voice that hit him was unmistakably his mother's.

“I swear somebody better be _dead_ , or I—”

“Ma?”

Her threat ended abruptly as he spoke, met with a brief pause of recognition. “Oh, God—honey? What's wrong? Please tell me y'didn't get arrested _again_ —”

“ _No_ , no no no,” the Scout quickly cut in, “I'm _fine._ I just, um. Had a message I needed passed on. If y'don't mind, that is.”

Another silence filled the line. He licked his lip, not oblivious to the type of conversation he had just invited.

“Hm, the standoff is finally over, then, I take it?” The question had some weariness to it—the late hour, no doubt, but the undertone of amusement was what had him mortified at once.

“W—what did he tell you?”

It came out more frantic than he'd hoped. Knowing the Spy to be as secretive as he was, he hadn't fully considered that his mother might have been enlightened as to the situation. That she might know he had used her to throw his father's inadequacy in his face.

“Easy,” she shot back, a chuckle still in her voice. “Nothin', that's what. The only way I know somethin's wrong with him.”

The Scout sighed, not caring at this point if the phone picked it up. It was less with relief and more of that familiar feeling of shame again, the one he still couldn't believe he allowed the man to evoke in him.

“Figured it had to do with you, anyway.” Her voice had lowered considerably. “There—ain't a whole lot of people that get under his skin.”

“Don't worry about it. It's nothin', okay, Ma?”

He knew it to be a terribly unconvincing lie. People didn't call in the early hours of the morning about _nothing_. The problem was that there were only two people who understood what was taking place between them right now, and his mother did not happen to be one of them.

“Just—pass this on for me, will'ya?” he continued, even the short silence unnerving him. “Tell 'im to meet me in an hour. He'll know where.”

For a moment the line was quiet yet again. The Scout wondered with a creeping dread if she would refuse to be the messenger any longer, particularly now that they had been on almost friendly terms so recently. There was no way he could speak to the man on the phone right now—he hadn't even fully prepared what exactly he was going to say yet.

At last she spoke, his jaw clenching as he braced for the inevitable—all set to plead his case, to buy just a little bit more time—

“You _promise me_ y'ain't back in jail again?”

His head hit the table with a painful thump. It was going to be an extremely long night.

* * *

The drive out to the water tower was a short one, though the aching in his stomach reminded him that it still wasn't close enough. It sat a few miles off the interstate in a barren sprawl of desert, an undisputed RED-controlled region— _Cornwell Utilities_ spelled out brightly in big block letters. Teufort's lead-poisoned water supply could, of course, be traced directly back to Mann Co.

The two of them had met a few times at the somewhat secluded location, as an initial precaution. In an odd twist, the Scout had found himself far more concerned at first with the cross-faction interaction than the older man was. That came to an abrupt end with a frank explanation that Miss Pauling had been looking the other way on it for ages, albeit it was admittedly in exchange for calling in a number of favors throughout the past months.

He felt no small amount of resentment toward the fact that she might have some degree of pity for him, if not amusement instead. It seemed as though every person he knew nowadays held that sentiment.

And for the moment, he even pitied himself. Just a little. He'd earned that much, at least.

That feeling only increased as his destination came upon him, the illuminated headlights of a bright red vehicle parked in the small dirt lot. He pulled his car in slowly, a few dozen yards away—there had not been a single time yet when he beat his father to a rendezvous point.

The runner eased back into the headrest, eyes falling shut for a moment. That officially meant no backing out of this one. He pushed his door open with the force of a band-aid being ripped off before stepping into the crisp autumn night.

The Spy was leaning against his own car with a cigarette loose between his fingers, expression obscured in the shadows cast by the dim lighting. His unfailingly polished style of dress had fallen slightly to something more akin to business casual.

Not exactly unimpressive given the hour, the Scout thought, though the mask that still remained on the other man's face made him feel immediately at an uncomfortable disadvantage.

Blue eyes raked over him as he came to stand beside his father—the word kept playing over and over in his mind, as though it might contain some form of protection in itself. Protection from a level of scrutiny he already knew he could not endure much longer.

“Yes?”

Expectant, somewhere beneath that tone of indifference. He flicked some ash to the ground.

“I—”

The Scout stopped short, forcing himself to actually _think_ for a moment before he spoke this time. He wrenched his gaze from the ground to reluctantly level with eyes much too intense for his comfort.

“I wanted to—say that I'm kinda—”

He sighed, his arms spreading with just a touch of exasperated drama. “—sorry. For y'know—I sort of sucker punched you back there, and I know y'were _tryin'_ to be nice to me—which is hard for you, I know that—”

 _You're ramblin'. Stop ramblin',_ the voice in his head reminded him, the one that was getting just a bit better about catching himself doing that. _Sorry's enough._

Falling silent at once, he searched the other man's expression for some hint as to what was going on in his mind. It almost reminded him of Little League, when you beat the other guy's team and his mother was forcing him to shake hands afterward.

That was _not_ a good thing. His eyes went straight back to the dirt below, which he incidentally felt a lot like.

The voice that responded, however, was void of contempt.

“Why are you _sorry?”_

The Scout's gaze shot back up again, perplexed. “Huh?”

A roll of the eyes answered him. “You shouldn't be apologizing to me for what you said. It was the truth, as offensive as I may have found it.”

He blinked, still uncomprehending. There was no fucking way he tormented himself for weeks, just to be _right_.

“Honestly, I'd prefer you tell me...what you think of me. Rather than springing it on me, in any case.” He chuckled, though it was humorless. “You hadn't done that yet, since we've been on speaking terms, and I should have suspected that it was a matter of time. Even someone like you doesn't—shouldn't—forgive so easily.”

The younger man bit down on the inside of his cheek, resisting his urge to interrupt for the moment. This was _exactly_ why he never came forward with the truth of his uglier emotions toward his father—whenever this man was willing to share a conversation with him about it, it always seemed as though he scorned himself far more than his son ever could.

_Oh God, please don't tell me he avoided me for a month 'cause he thought I called him out on bein' a shit dad and felt fuckin' bad about it._

“I...I said I didn't hate'ya Rey, so stop goin' back to that.” He frowned, ignoring the raised eyebrow that meant names were strictly off limits. Renard Fontaine _was_ still dead, he'd been reminded on more than one occasion now, but he was not in the mood to perpetuate the lie for the time being.

“It ain't as simple as you're makin' it. I can feel like y'ran out on me without hatin' you. I can be pissed off that you hid from me for years, right up until you got _caught_ and _had_ to fess up about it.”

_Stop—hold that punch. Y'ain't goin' for the finisher on this._

He sighed again, folding his arms. “I don't hate you. I _really_ , honestly don't. But I sure as hell won't act like I ain't still _kinda_ confused why you'd even have a family in the first place if y'had no plans to be around, _ever_.” He paused, voice softening as his thoughts caught up. “I mean— _did_ you even want one? At all?”

There was some discomfort in his father's masked face, though his gaze did remain unflinching. He took a long drag from his cigarette. “I wanted to be free to do my job. Your mother wanted children. We met in the middle on it and that was that.”

The Scout leaned his head against the car. Were his explanations ever _not_ cryptically, infuriatingly simple?

“And y'never thought about what that would mean for us?” _For me_ , his mind corrected him, because that was what it was about at this point. “We got called bastards, and—Ma got called a whore. First fight I ever got in was 'cause of that.”

"I'm well aware of that." His voice was calm, unsettlingly so, as it were. The notion of such insults seemed to strike a chord with him in a way that he wasn't quite able to give voice to, a brief silence implying an apology too important to go unnoticed.

That was a start, anyway, the Scout thought.

Still, he avoided meeting his gaze, the discomfort more tangible than ever now that the conversation had grown more intimate. A gesture reflected by his father, no doubt. He didn't like the idea of showing a point of weakness any more than the other man did, but airing his grievances out loud had a certain sense of closure to it.

“I had thought that she would be enough for you," the Spy finally finished, as if by way of explanation. An explanation that did not sound as though it was intended as a justification, the Scout noted. "She had always been enough for me. It was too late when it became clear that we couldn't have it both ways.”

His voice had fallen, the troubled lines in his face clear even through the fabric. “Coming back would have thrown everything into chaos, and truthfully, I couldn't have given up what I was doing, anyway.”

“Couldn't, or wouldn't?”

The Spy shrugged. “A bit of both, perhaps. I was more selfish then. I've never denied that.”

“But—y'didn't _disappear,_ really." Back to looking down at his hands again, tucked firmly in the pockets of his jacket. He had no idea who this reassurance was for anymore. "And—you did— _do_ —care, right? About Ma? And me? All of us?”

“No.” He hadn't hesitated on that one. “And yes. No and yes. In that order.”

 _He hadn't hesitated._ No evasive glance or uncomfortable pause that betrayed the lie. Somehow, the verbal confirmation felt like the most important thing he could gain from a father who had never truly claimed the title.

_And yet..._

"I think I can _try_ to live with that but—" He smirked, fighting off that latent anger once again with a small shake of his head. His first instinct was to joke, but the thought that came to mind wasn't _entirely_ in jest. "I still kinda wanna punch you for bein' a jerk about all of this for so long. I mean, if I'm gonna level with you.”

His father cut him a sideways glance, his expression unfazed. “Then do it. I won't stop you.”

 _Oh, shit, do it!_ the devil on his shoulder leered. Thankfully his mouth was in disagreement, because that was absolutely not why he'd come out here tonight.

“Uh? No. That's—fucked up, kinda. 'Sides, I can beat y'up at work, anyway.”

“That's _work_ ,” the Spy deadpanned. “If you can take a swing at me and put your anger to rest, then so be it. You've earned one.”

“C'mon—I ain't gonna—”

He was cut off abruptly as a punch whizzed past him, reflexes compensating for his surprise. He shot his opponent the dirtiest look he could manage, clearly insulted. “Okay, _now_ you're—”

Left hook. He dodged again and came back through with a shot of his own that he _felt_ connect with soft tissue. _Oh you gotta be kiddin' me—_

The other man swore, recoiling, though a wet chuckle was soon to follow. “Did you just break my fucking _nose?_ That was _artful_.”

“I didn't wanna do that, you _asshole_.” He was scowling, pushing his father against the car to assess the damage. He didn't think he broke anything, but the blood certainly was seeping through the mask. “Y—y'can't go back to Ma lookin' like that. What is _wrong_ with you, anyways?”

More snorting laughter, which _had_ to hurt at this point. The man had an incredible pain threshold. “Ah, and you're feeling better, are you not?”

The Scout glared at him. “ _Christ_. You _know_ I didn't _really_ wanna punch you,” he repeated, muttering. Now he was going to have to take him back to his own place and fix him up, which he was gonna fight, and no way in hell he was letting his Ma see this—

Even if maybe, sort of, he did feel a tiny bit better. That made him feel kinda gross, too, because he'd idolized the man's memory for years and it was _not_ supposed to be like this. Really, he wanted to just hug him again like before, when he'd first materialized into his life, and the thought wasn't so easy to stomach that they'd ended up with this instead.

Maybe they _were_ too similar for their own good _._ Maybe this was what their relationship was going to look like, and maybe, _maybe_ that was okay.

He sighed.

"Get in the fuckin' car."


	4. Chapter 4

“Look. You're—gonna have to let me do somethin' about that sooner or later.”

The Scout spoke it with a casual easiness, or what was at least a brave attempt at it anyway. Considering that it was nearly dawn and his bloodied father was sulking on the couch beside him, he didn't think it was half bad as far as playing it cool went.

But the father in question kept his gaze on the early morning news, quietly indifferent. He had reluctantly agreed to return to the Scout's apartment, though the younger man was currently regretting the decision as a fresh wave of tense silence had settled in between them all over again.

There was little doubt in his mind that the Spy was still mulling over their exchange at the water tower, both the conversation and the small scuffle that had followed. He suspected the man was less content with the answers he had given than the one who had asked them in the first place.

He also suspected that punch was something his father had wanted even more so than he had himself.

It wasn't exactly _fair_ , the Scout thought. He certainly liked to leave very little room for his son to be properly angry with him, when he reserved the majority of that sentiment for himself. His Ma had called it being a martyr, and, after asking her what that _meant_ , he was inclined to agree with that characterization after all.

“If it's the mask thing again, I already know what y'look like,” the runner stated flatly, leaning forward to try to intercept the Spy's view of the television. No way in hell the weekend weather report for Albuquerque was _that_ interesting. “I mean, yeah, it still don't explain where I got my incredible good looks from, but I think by now y'can trust me at least—”

He stopped short at the unimpressed glower he received, though it continued to lack the tint of arrogance that he was accustomed to seeing there. An unpleasant proportion of their interactions were nonverbal, mostly on the part of his father—the polar opposite of himself. More often than not, he could only hope that what he read there was accurate.

So _maybe_ he still had no clue whatsoever how his mother had put up with this for so damn long. There was another expression she'd used in reference to him: _gettin' blood from a stone_.

Well, he _had_ gotten blood from him tonight, he mused. Too bad it wasn't nearly as entertaining as it would have been under practically any other circumstances.

The Scout sighed loudly—for dramatic effect, of course, because two could play at that game—and snatched the damp cloth from the coffee table.

“C'mon. We're doin' this one way or another.” He stared at the side of the other man's head, fully aware that the Spy knew what kind of bitchy expression he was throwing at him. “I didn't make you come back here so you could just walk back out all bloody and fucked up.”

 _And scare the hell outta Ma,_ he added in his mind. The inevitable swollen bruise was already going to do a good job of that as it was.

“I'm more than capable of taking care of it myself, _Scout_ ,” the Spy shot back, no less snippy in tone. Something about being called by his title at this particular moment rubbed the Scout the wrong way, and he frowned. “Your mother isn't going to see me like this. So you can stop pestering me like a child about it.”

Called to the carpet on that one. Freakin' _ouch_.

“What, so it's that tough to believe I might care a little about smashin' your face in?” he scoffed, doing his best (read: not that great) impression of totally innocent and genuinely concerned. “Which, for the record, I didn't wanna do. And I said that, remember?”

“You do it at work—sometimes, anyway, when you're lucky,” the Frenchman added dryly. “Pretend it's like that.”

“That's _work_ ,” the Scout echoed, a very similar conversation in mind. “Fuck's sake, didn't y'get pissed at _me_ when I wanted to freeze to death in peace?”

No answer to that one. He shook his head, exhaling. There was another way to go about this, and he was willing to bet it would work if he did so to proper effect. Problem was, he wasn't really known for doing anything tactfully, and even he recognized that about himself. His poor attempts at being subtle had gotten him into this whole mess in the first place.

That meant he had to be _really_ careful about this. So he closed his eyes for just a short moment, breathing in quietly though his nose, and leaned back into the threadbare couch.

“You'd let Ma take care'a you.”

He sniffed, watching for a response. Nothing so far, so he was encouraged to continue.

“I—know you're gonna be a dick about this, and I know it ain't the same thing if it's me, but—”

For a moment the Scout paused, a stern, unreadable glance meeting his from the side. Determining his intentions, no doubt. Fortunately, he had nothing to hide this time.

“Just trust me 'cause I'm her son, maybe.” He shrugged, adding more quietly, “If bein' yours ain't good enough.”

From the way the Spy's jaw had set, the younger man immediately regretted his words. His mind went into a panic. Maybe it _was_ just a bit too bold of a thing to say—he could've just left it at that _without_ adding that last little swipe. He'd fucked up _again_ , and—

“And, being that you _are_ her son, I expect you won't drop this until I comply. Am I correct in assuming that?”

There was a smirk there that the Scout had not been expecting, the tightness in his shoulders easing the slightest bit. So much for getting better at reading the infuriatingly enigmatic man.

“Yep, you better believe it.” He smiled back smugly, but it quickly vanished as he thought about it for a moment. “Uh, did it work?”

His father gave a noncommittal shrug. “Somehow I doubt that it is any more worthwhile to argue with you than it ever has been with your mother.”

“Awesome,” the Scout grinned, edging closer to the Spy. Only to be met with a slight flinching at the sudden action.

His face fell again. He hadn't quite considered that the man might have an aversion to close physical contact of this sort. That feeling of discomfort was transferred to him as their eyes awkwardly met for a brief instant.

“You—okay with this? Really? I mean. I don't want you to flip out at me, so...”

One hand had been placed on his father's shoulder. He hadn't even noticed he'd done it, considering it was such a normal kind of interaction to him growing up with a number of brothers. There was no reply to this at first, but he did feel a gradual relaxing of tension in the older man's body.

The Spy roamed his gaze over his son, oddly pensive. Nothing made him feel quite as unclean, the Scout thought, as stripping the man of his dignity like this.

He'd just wanted to make things right again. Why did that _never_ seem to work out for him lately?

The affirmation came in a slow nod. “Do as you will.”

“All right then.” With a small nod of his own, the Scout withdrew his hand. “Did you—uh. You wanna take the mask off or should I?”

A low chuckle, and the corner of the Spy's mouth quirked up the tiniest amount. “Go ahead. I think you'll find that I don't distrust you nearly as much as you seem to believe."

He tried to smile in return, because that really _was_ flattering, honestly, and a _relief_ , but something about removing that veil of mystery from him still felt incredibly wrong. Even since they had been reunited, he had only seen him without it a single time.

He knew him better _with_ it on, and while that was where the level of comfort and familiarity was at between them, he really did want that to change.

It was about damn time for it to.

So very carefully, like he was handling something fragile and important, he peeled away the bloody fabric from the man's face. Slowly, so as not to cause any additional pain, and when it was finally gone, the Scout found himself just staring for a second because... _fuck_.

He really could see the similarities to that photograph. That wasn't exactly an easy thought to reconcile in his own mind.

Decades of aging accounted for the discrepancies, more lines and a few faint scars that were just visible in the early morning light that was starting to peek through the _(carefully closed)_ blinds. His dark hair was touched with bits of gray at the temples, and the look on his face was...much more troubled, that much was for sure.

The Scout flashed a confident _everything's all right_ smile again, hoping that he might just be able to put his father more at ease. Long shot, but he had nothing to lose at this point by attempting to lift the mood.

“Y'look like hell,” he sighed, though it was with a wiseass tone that was intended to lighten the crushingly heavy silence. “I'm, uh. Still sorry about that, just so y'know.”

Remaining silent, the Spy merely let his eyes drift back to the television, the window—anywhere that wasn't directly at his youngest son. Something about his manner was reminiscent of an animal that had been driven from its hole and was now calmly accepting of its fate.

 _Fuck,_ the Scout thought. _Again. Freakin' again_.

Inhaling sharply, more so than he'd intended to do _loudly_ in any case, he brought the cloth close to the man's nose, where wet blood still surrounded the area in an ugly blotch.

“It's a little cold,” he warned, and gently touched it to the area of the injury. He started out very light with his movements, his heart sinking just a bit as a slight cringe came into the Spy's expression.

It _had_ to be painful—he'd gotten punched in the nose before, and it had the wonderful quality of both hurting like a motherfucker _and_ causing a terrible swelling that was an embarrassment for a long time afterward. Something about that particular injury lacked the usual pride of a battle scar.

And in this case, he took no pride himself in having caused it.

“Yeah, it's—pretty swollen.” The Scout pulled back, the blood now gone, but it had revealed an equally unpleasant bruise beginning to form. _Because I really needed to feel even more like shit_ , he added mentally. “I'll uh—I can get some ice, if y'want. Or coffee.”

The awkward silence was back in full force. Absolutely freakin' wonderful.

A few more moments passed, and he resigned himself to the fact that he wasn't getting an answer to that. He moved to get up, maybe grab a _Bonk!_ to keep him lucid after the entirely unenjoyable all-nighter he had just pulled. They were going to have to go back to the water tower eventually to grab his car.

But a calm voice stopped him before he could leave.

“Wait."

The Scout sat back down, smirking. “What, you gonna say more than one sentence to me finally?”

That thoughtful, moody expression had returned to the Spy's face. The younger man was not quite sure what to make of that fact.

“I—didn't get to conclude that conversation we were having back there. Not properly, anyway,” the Frenchman added, his eyes still evasively directed away. “I dislike having my positions misrepresented, if you understand what I mean.”

Squinting in confusion, the Scout rubbed the back of his head. The meaning of that statement was a bit too complex for him, especially at this hour. “Um...no?”

The Spy shook his head slightly. “I feel that—I may have implied that I didn't _want_ children. Or regretted that I had done so because it was what your mother wanted.”

Now _that_ caught the younger man off guard. He tipped his head forward a bit, suddenly a lot more expectant. That scrap of validation that had eluded him for so long.

“The truth about that is merely one part of a much more complicated answer,” his father admitted, voice falling lower. “What _is_ certainly true is that I was never fit for a domestic life. I had already spent too much of my formative years in the turmoil of war and...less than legal activities, and I had every intention to live the rest of my life in precisely that fashion.”

He stopped short for a moment, running his hand over his face with a distinct uneasiness. There was no lack of clarity to the fact that talking about this caused him a lot of grief, the Scout thought, and yet it seemed to be important enough to him to bring up so plainly.

“ _However_...if Kathryn had asked me to stay, I would have. There was no sacrifice I wouldn't have made for her.”

His hand still obscured his face, hiding what the Scout knew was shame. He hated what shame looked like on this man. Renard Fontaine had been a lost hero in his mind for twenty years, and then he'd been an insufferably proud man of unparalleled skill who _just so happened_ to be his father, even if the _real_ Renard Fontaine actually bugged the shit out of him with his snide arrogance.

And he'd taken him like that just fine, because they were fuckin' blood, just like his brothers who _also_ bugged the shit out of him, and still he had tolerated them and taken countless blows for _them,_ too.

Now he actually did want to punch him again. If he wasn't already black and blue he would've done it all over again.

“She never _did_ ask me to stay, though,” he finally finished, the underlying tone obviously bitter. “And I wish she _had_ , you know. She always has used that to deny me the right to take responsibility for this. For her sons that lost a father because of me.”

At this, the Scout finally started chuckling. His response immediately drew the other man's gaze right back to him, the lack of understanding evident in his raised eyebrows.

“No freakin' wonder Ma calls you a martyr. Never seen a guy who felt so sorry for himself,” he smirked, shaking his head. “I mean—yeah. I'm pretty pissed about that whole 'no dad' thing too, but I think you got this idea that we're all _perfect_ in this family and we're just one _perfect dad_ short of a sitcom.”

The Spy blinked, an expression of disbelief on his face that his son had never thought he'd see. Well—partly because of the mask, but also because nothing surprised him like, ever. Emboldened, he decided to see this thing through to the end.

“So—you can walk back outta here with that if y'wanna just cry about it for another twenty years of my life. I got my problems with you out of my system, and I been thinkin' that we might be able to actually get along pretty decent after this.”

His father still had his hands folded between his knees, hunched forward in discontent. The lines in his forehead were still troubled.

“I can't make it up to you,” he conceded, his tone at last returned to the even, logical style that the Scout was so accustomed to. “And I do so hate doing anything unsatisfactorily. If I must be your father in any tangible way, I don't savor the idea of it being so... _inadequate_.”

More big words, but the runner kind of thought he got the gist of that excuse. “So...you're gonna abandon me _again_ , because you can't change what y'did _before?”_ He gave a dramatic sigh of disapproval. “Really, Rey, I thought y'were better at salvaging a botched job than that. I seen it before on the battlefield too many times not to believe it.”

“I—” The Spy's retort was halted as he seemed to consider this for a moment. “I did _not_ say I was abandoning you again. Don't put words in my mouth.”

“Then drop it,” the young man responded frankly. “I think y'ain't tryin' hard enough. I mean, how many times I gotta punch you for you to let me just _kinda_ warm up to you, _Dad?”_

This provoked a bit of a miffed expression from his father. A moody scowl, like he'd just been challenged on something he wasn't quite comfortable with.

Then, suddenly, the animosity disappeared. “Wait a moment. Did you just call me _'Dad'?_ ”

 _Well, shit_. Now that was just a little embarrassing. He felt the heat rising in his face—he'd inherited that accursed reaction from his mother, he was absolutely sure of it.

“That was a one-time thing,” he answered quickly, doing his best to hide the fluster in his voice. “Get you to your freakin' senses. Not happenin' again, okay?”

His father had that obnoxious smirk back on his face again. Once again, that urge to punch him—

But, well—at least he'd kind of won that argument. Even if he made himself look _and_ feel stupid in the process.

Casting his gaze away in the lingering feeling of embarrassment, his eyes fell upon that thing again. He'd almost forgotten about it still sitting there, right in plain sight—the yellow envelope on the coffee table.

For a moment he stared at it, thinking. Wondering, more appropriately, if it might be an okay time to talk about it. There probably wasn't going to be a better time, admittedly, and he had the oddest desire to finally share the photo with the person that had so long been the point of intense fascination for him in it.

“Hey—” he began suddenly, throwing a much less irritated glance over at his father. The look he got in return was still infuriatingly amused, but that was _still_ a lot better than bitchy or sulking like before.

 _Gotta look on the bright side_ , he reminded himself.

“I uh—I think I got somethin' to show you.”


	5. Chapter 5

The expression that currently resided on the Spy's exposed face had the runner wondering if sharing the photograph had been such a good idea after all. Yet another time, the Scout noted irritably, that his ability to interpret the man's emotions fell completely flat.

“She gave this to you?” he finally asked in an even tone, bringing the brief but horribly uncomfortable pause to an end.

Distracted by his relief, the Scout quickly gave a small nod. “Mm—yeah. Well. She gave it t'me about a month ago, but to be honest, I...”

He hesitated for a moment. Everything just _had_ to be so awkward between them still. “I didn't actually open it up until earlier tonight.”

His gaze still settled on the picture in his fingers, the Spy did not press him for any more details on that question. And a damn good thing it was, too, because he was not about to confess the amount of difficulty he'd had just coercing himself into looking at the thing again. That he might be having some feelings that were a bit more complex than he usually liked.

“I'm surprised, really.” The older man smirked, though it seemed more fond than arrogant. The Scout wasn't sure what to make of that. “Never thought she would give it up. It's not as though she has much evidence that I exist in the first place, even after all this time.”

“Well, she has you in _person_ now, so...”

The Scout shrugged, fighting off the small smile that was creeping up on him. He'd sworn to himself that he wouldn't get emotional about this, but damned if that wasn't hard to do after all that had taken place now. He still had a thing or two to learn from this man about being detached and unaffected.

“I suppose that's true,” his father admitted more quietly. “I'd like to be able to assure her that she wouldn't need this anymore.”

That sobered tone was like a punch to the gut. The Scout had a suspicion that he was not the only one playing the emotional manipulation game at this point. A harmless game this time, he reminded himself, but still not one he was going to easily surrender to.

“And so now that it's mine, does that mean y'might actually tell me more about, you know, bein' my parents and all?” he asked pointedly. “I still have pliable defensibility, y'know.”

 _Nice one_ , he told himself. Didn't matter if he'd learned that phrase from his team's Engineer.

The Spy turned to look at him, the corner of his mouth slightly curved up in contained amusement. “You mean _plausible deniability_ , I presume?”

He didn't manage to stop his own face from falling at that one.

“Yeah, right. That.”

His father considered this for a moment, the photograph twitching beneath his thumb. “And what exactly are you looking for? Proof? Because that DNA sample is long gone, per a certain agreement with your friend Miss Pauling.”

The Scout's expression only grew more aggravated at this comment. “What I meant was that y'should tell me somethin' about you guys. Ma barely told me anything except that I _had_ a father.”

That was where the lie was going to begin, anyway. Truthfully, there had been bits of information about their relationship that his mother had shared throughout his years growing up. He was intrigued to see how much of that might match up, though his knowledge was admittedly limited.

What he did know was that his father was not quite the same several decades ago as he was now. The young man she had known had the same off-putting arrogance, but had not yet fully mastered the art of hiding his actually rather tender pride beneath it. Another thing the Scout loathed to admit was a similarity between them, as it would just so happen. She had also described him as occasionally shy under his sharp tongue, something he could easily picture his mother would exploit with glee.

Then, more intriguing still, there was the amusing lack of romantic prowess that she characterized him with—a version of his father who wasn't quite the same infallibly charming man that he was today. This managed to at least _slightly_ soften the blow of the constant virgin taunts that had been leveled at him over the years. The Scout considered this to be poetic justice, if not exactly revenge.

And maybe, just maybe, itdid give him an obnoxiously warm feeling toward the Spy. To know something humanizing about him, beneath his impeccable outer persona. A few scarce hints that they weren't quite as different, at heart, as he had assumed they were.

But he wasn't about to confess that even in his own mind.

“What is it that you would like to know then?” the Spy responded at last, the dismissive voice cutting into his wandering thoughts. The smirk that remained made it clear that he would evade every bit of this discussion. He would be a terrible keeper of secrets if he didn't, the Scout supposed.

The runner leaned back, throwing his arms behind his head in a leisurely gesture. “How about the way you guys met. Easy one.”

A perfect one, because he happened to know that story, or at least a version of it. Not going to be a better way to confirm that he wasn't being totally lied to.

His father dipped his chin forward, smirk becoming just a tiny bit more devious. “Oh, that one? Is easy indeed. One lovely summer day, Kathryn caught me making off with something that wasn't mine and blackmailed me.” He swiped his finger over her image affectionately, clashing with his harsher words. “And that was how she became the perfect accomplice that I never asked for.”

Bingo on that one, even if it was through the lens of his perpetual denial of affection for anyone or anything. The Scout wondered just how much of the truth he'd be able to glean out of him.

“So, _she_ went after _you_. Am I right?” That type of dynamic wasn't too uncommon in Boston, but he had no doubts that his father would take exception to it nonetheless. “Never known Ma _not_ to get what she wants.”

And, of course, the Spy narrowed his eyes ever so slightly at this. “She was very persistent. And I was very busy making a living.”

“Yeah, I always hate it when a knockout chick follows me around too,” the younger man agreed casually, nodding. “Y'must've had it really tough with that.”

“I can see that the two of you have been conspiring against me again,” came the unimpressed reply, though the amusement in his eyes said otherwise. “Kathryn was the type to get along with precisely no one, and I believe she must have omitted that part from her little _tales._ She was hardly interested in being swept off her feet, even if it did happen to be by a dashing stranger.”

“Or maybe you were just the guy she was waitin' for to come along,” the Scout finished slyly, arms folded. “And I ain't met guys like you in Boston, so no surprises there. But c'mon now. She looks happy in that picture—as much as I've ever seen her look.”

The Spy sighed, though the amusement in his expression had not disappeared. “I made a promise to her. One photograph. If I ever took another, it was going to be a mugshot.”

“So what color was it?”

A perplexed frown. “What color was what?”

“Oh—duh. I mean. Ma's dress.” The Scout shrugged. “I was wonderin' that, when I was lookin' at it earlier.”

“I don't remember,” his father stated shortly. “It was over twenty years ago. She had dozens of them.”

As the room went quiet for a moment, the sound of the early morning news report still lingering in each silence, the Scout put on his best _you liar_ face that he could, which was incidentally a really, really smug grin.

“...yellow,” the Spy finally muttered, gingerly returning the picture to the envelope. “Yellow, and the flower pin in her hair was peach. Does that satisfy your curiosity?”

He nodded, but he couldn't help chuckling at the absolutely fuckin' _irritated_ expression the Spy was wearing, the lines in his forehead now quite clear without the balaclava to hide it. Of course he would fight the notion that he cared for someone else, and that wasn't about to change any time soon.

But the morning light flooding into the room was beginning to reveal something else on his father's face, something the Scout was becoming keenly aware of as he got a better sense of the more subtle ways that the man showed his emotions. Something that looked suspiciously like contentment.


	6. Epilogue

By the time the short-lived fall season had turned to winter in the desert, things were almost back to normal.

Well—the emphasis was on _almost_. Things never remained constant during his time with Builders League United, and that fact had only grown clearer as the months turned into years. The annual visit from the Soldier's vengeful wizard roommate the previous week underscored the ridiculousness of thinking anything could ever be normal when it came to his job.

But then, there were still those nights. The ones that he looked forward to, even if he still wouldn't admit that to another living soul.

The ones that had been monthly at first, before the Scout had made the awkward suggestion that maybe, possibly, making it weekly wouldn't hurt anyone. There were the long drives too, without a destination, and only the soft sound of the radio and the roaring of the highway to fill in all of the empty spaces.

It wasn't until he was getting out of his car on one such night, fumbling for his key in the darkness, that he realized he was the happiest he'd been in years.

The whole thing had kind of just sneaked up on him. So maybe he _had_ started to get little signs here and there that things were different now—better, even. Sometimes their gazes would meet briefly, still with that uncomfortable feeling of people who didn't quite know each other very well yet, or when he would give the Spy a tiny punch on the arm that was supposed to mean that they were buddies. He'd received more than a few glares for that type of thing.

(And he'd kept doing it anyway, of course.)

Some of it, however, had not changed really at all. Whatever advantage he might have had outside of battle completely disappeared when they chanced to cross paths on the field, and he still found himself with a searing bullet to the head whenever he got a bit too cocky and thought to perhaps reclaim his team's intelligence from the Spy _while_ stealing theirs.

Battlefield shenanigans aside, he felt certain that one thing had changed in a big way. The vindictive hatred was gone now—cleared from his body like a passing illness. And he could feel it, the oppressive darkness all but drifted away and leaving him oddly at peace. There was a certain cleanness to that feeling, that he no longer felt the battle on the inside to keep his emotions and thoughts toward his father separated and in their proper places at all times.

Still, as much as the Scout hated to acknowledge it, he did have those moments when _it_ would stir again. One of his teammates would make an off-color remark about a certain incident involving his mother, maybe, and he had to stop himself, firmly—

 _Everything's okay now,_ he would remind the more tender part of his ego, when those thoughts would start creeping up on him. That whole mishap was just one of several that he forgave his father for now, and he was not willing to revoke that on a petty whim.

 _Not ever again._ Forgiveness had earned him trust, and perhaps a little bit of something else that made him feel too weirded out to give a proper name to. And, though his forgiveness was still shaky now and then, it was one that was getting easier to hold constant in his mind with each moment he spent in the man's quiet company.

_Still..._

As trying as the past few months had been, the ordeal had left him wishing that they could spend more time together like that, somewhere deep inside of him that still felt the injustice of too many years gone by without a father. And he wanted that time back even if the Spy _was_ going to be a total jerkass about it.

He had no idea that he was about to get that wish granted.

It had started on a Monday morning, when he'd arrived _(late, as usual)_ to Miss Pauling's routine mission briefing—only to find a room packed with seventeen men instead of eight.

“Whoa—the hell's goin' on here?” he blurted out immediately, only to be glared at by twice as many eyes as usual.

The woman in purple did not even bother to look up from the paperwork in her hands. “You're fifteen minutes late again, Scout. I was just going over the fact that you're fired—”

His eyebrows rose, the reaction both shocked and contrite. “'Cause I was _fifteen minutes late?_ Ain't that kinda—”

“Not you _personally_ ,” she sighed, cutting him off in one of her _I don't have time for this_ voices. “All of you. Blutarch and Redmond Mann are dead, and thus your services on their behalf will not be needed anymore.”

 _Oh_. So _that_ was what the low murmurings were about. The runner hadn't really paid any mind to that detail when he'd first entered, but it now had become quite apparent. He took the opportunity to slink to the back of the room, where a familiar face was smoking with an expression of indifference. They shared a short glance, a comfortable distance remaining between them.

“However—we have a new problem. A robot army is set to launch an attack on a number of Mann Co. warehouses within the next twenty-four hours.” Miss Pauling gestured at the document in her hand, printed on Saxton Hale's letterhead. “Mr. Hale has requested your cooperation in defending his company in exchange for, obviously, generous compensation.”

“And we will be paid for this?” questioned a Soldier, to which the woman ran her fingers through her hair with an exasperated glance off to the side.

“Might be a bit late to pay Merasmus back for your half of the utilities,” his Sniper answered dryly, to which the room responded half with chuckles, half with groans after the recent ordeal with said wizard.

“Yes,” Miss Pauling sighed again. “That is what I said, Soldier. You will all be paid extremely well for this suici—erm, very important mission. Mr. Hale wanted me to emphasize that he's counting on you all.”

She paused for a moment, surveying the room. A few of the mercenaries weren't paying much mind to the typical protocol that forbade cross-faction interaction; the BLU team's Soldier was seated beside the opposing Demoman, engaged in a hushed conversation, while the two Pyros were bartering hats in the corner. Miss Pauling's eyes fell on them as she leaned forward against the table.

“I realize that a few of you might be happy to know that you will all be required to work together, going forward, but I expect most of you may not be too happy about keeping each other's company.”

A glare shared between RED's Sniper and his enemy Spy counterpart seemed to underline her point.

“ _But_ , we are expecting you to do so without incident,” she continued. “The battles to come are going to be dangerous enough without you also killing one another on top of that.”

“Can't make any promises,” the very same Sniper muttered, to which his rival narrowed his eyes. Miss Pauling looked none too pleased either, but she ignored the comment.

“We'll be meeting at the airstrip at 1300 hours. Don't be late, or I do have to warn you that your contract will be forfeit.”

She shot a meaningful glance toward the Scout with this statement.

“What?” he spoke up innocently.

“Dismissed.”

The room emptied quickly with her command, a din of noise following the group as they crammed out through the exit. The Scout stayed in place for the few minutes that it took the room to clear out, going over in his mind what had just transpired. It had all happened pretty fast, and he wasn't too sure how he felt about working with people he hated for the most part.

From a few feet to his left, a quiet _ahem_ reminded him that he was not alone.

“You look...oddly deep in thought,” the Spy chided, finally heading toward the door himself. “I certainly won't stop you if you'd like to stand here all day, but I suggest you start getting your affairs in order now if you plan on leaving with the rest of us today.”

The Scout sighed petulantly, shooting a withering glare back in the direction of his father. He already had an irritated rebuff on the tip of his tongue—and then _it_ hit him.

_Holy shit. Duh!_

“Oh my _God_. You know what this means?”

He had closed the distance between them now, darting through the doorway to join the Spy as he approached the adjoining hall. His enthusiastic outburst had earned him a perturbed glare from the other man, cigarette plucked from his lips to properly display his distaste as his son pawed at his forearm.

“That I'm not getting the vacation I was promised?” he deadpanned, gingerly removing the offending hand.

The Scout withdrew slightly from his personal space, taking heed of the irritated expression the Spy was wearing. “Uh, well, yeah, that too I guess. What I was talkin' about was—ah—”

Of course it had to be so freakin' hard to just say it. He sighed.

“We're on the same team now, y'know,” he stated, more evenly than his previous words. “And I'm—”

No smirk or disarming gesture to let him know it was _okay_. He felt a lump in his throat. Just a look of calm, guarded interest, if a bit tending back toward the indifferent side.

“I'm lookin' forward to it.”

He braced himself for the inevitable sarcastic remark, his just desserts for daring to be kind of serious for a moment about his feelings toward their relationship. But the expression on his father's face hadn't shifted to a smug smirk, nor that familiar appearance of discomfort either.

“As am I.”

The lump in his throat loosened— _that_ look was the holy grail of looks. The one he'd only gotten a handful of times, the _I'm proud of you_ look that he almost hadn't believed he was even reading correctly at first. That nonchalant smile, not an uptight, condescending smirk of untouchable superiority. If the mask hadn't been there, the Scout knew, he would be able to see the lines softened in his face as well.

And if that wasn't enough to make his day, the Spy gave him a light cuff on the arm to punctuate it. That little gesture that he thought pissed him off, but maybe, he _actually_ —

He was too elated to quite catch the _try not to embarrass me_ that his father added snidely as he left him standing there, and even if he had heard it, it wouldn't have done a thing to take away from the electric feeling radiating from the point of contact on his forearm.

It was in that moment that the Scout decided that it didn't matter to him one bit if an army of robots was on the way, more than likely going to kill every last one of them in an impressive explosion of metal and ash.

He would _finally_ be able to die happy. That thought kept his feet moving as he made a quick sprint to catch up with his father, the grin on his face one he did not even care about hiding anymore.


End file.
